


I'll gather up the nerve, I'm packing up my bag, It's more than you deserve

by sassykenzie1 Problematic Stories (sassykenzie1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Age Play Little Ethan Nestor, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, Pregnancy, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29832453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassykenzie1/pseuds/sassykenzie1%20Problematic%20Stories
Summary: Mark and Amy announce her pregnancy, causing Ethan to spiral into self-loathing.Title from "I Just Wanna Run" by The Downtown Fiction
Relationships: Amy Nelson & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach & Amy Nelson & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	I'll gather up the nerve, I'm packing up my bag, It's more than you deserve

**Author's Note:**

> Please pay attention to the tags. This is _not_ crankiplier.
> 
> This is my one of my first true attempt at writing angst, please keep that in mind.

Ethan’s cheeks hurt from smiling so wide, but he knew if he weren’t happy for them, it’d seem odd. So he faked a smile and bore the pain, acting like Mark and Amy’s words hadn’t just caused his heart to crack right in half. Not that they knew that, of course.

It was natural, they’d been together for years. It was natural that the two would eventually take things further. Only natural that a baby would be in their future. It was natural, but what wasn’t natural was the icy wave of jealousy that washed over Ethan when they told him.

They’d had a small meet-up with those nearby gathering at Mark’s house, and the rest of their close friends, Bob, Wade, Sean, Felix, anyone Mark and Amy wanted to share the excitement with, through a computer screen. 

Ethan tried to shake the jealousy, but he couldn’t. It was stupid. Just because he was an adult who felt the need to act like a baby, his friends couldn’t move on with their lives? It was bullshit, and the rational part of his mind was telling him that, but the irrational side of him was saying it was unfair. Saying that they already had a baby they could care for.

He would never tell them that, though. Who the hell could hear their grown-ass adult friend say he wants to wear diapers and be treated like a baby and still have any respect for themselves?

He knew he was being antisocial, not mingling with their friends, but he felt like he would bring the attitude of the party down. He feels a presence slide up next to him. “Why are you hanging out over here by yourself, Eef? You okay?”

The nickname makes his already cracked heart crack more. “I’m fine, Mark. Don’t you worry about me.”

He already knows Mark isn’t convinced. They stand in silence for a bit, both watching their friends talking, and he can hear a distinctly Sean-like shout from the computer speakers. “Congratulations, Mark,” Ethan says to break the silence. To at least put on a facade of happiness for them.

“Thanks, man.”

They go back to silence. Mark eventually pushes away from the wall with a sigh to go and rejoin his girlfriend and friends. He glances back at Ethan with a concerned look on his way. Ethan can see Amy’s eyebrows furrowing and he feels horrible.

He’s making them worry about him on one of their happiest days. He’s a horrible friend. He checks the time on his phone. He’d been there about an hour and he decides that’s enough time to seem polite. It is getting kind of late, he can lie and say he’s tired.

He walks towards the group, his heart clenching when Amy gives him a huge smile. He gives a half-hearted smile back. He makes sure he’s in the camera frame before he says his goodbyes. “I’m gettin’ tired. I don’t mean to bail on ya, but…”

Amy’s smile falters and the group’s chat dies down. “You’re leaving?” Mark asks.

“I’m sorry, Mark. I’m getting tired, I need to let Spencer out for a while,” he says, coming up with the only excuse he could. “Congratulations again, you two,” he adds, pulling Mark into a hug, followed by Amy.

“You sure you’re alright?” Amy asks. Of course Mark told her about how he’s acting. 

“I’m jus’ tired,” he lies.

He waves to the computer's camera and grabs his jacket from the arm of the couch. He drives home in silence, not bothering to turn the radio on.

Arriving home, he tosses his jacket on the couch and dials a local pizza place for delivery. He’s not in the mood to cook, but he still needs to eat. He calls, “Spencer,” and smiles at the sound of claws on wood floors. He hooks Spencer’s leash to his collar and takes him outside for a few minutes.

As he’s heading inside, he’s intercepted by the pizzaman. He pays them, following with a thank you. He feeds Spencer and then himself and then begins to settle in for the night. He’d been quite stressed and upset at the party, and despite his reservations about his “hobby”, it is a good way to destress.

Making his decision, he makes his way to his bedroom, and beelines towards his closet. He pulls the piece of plywood out and sets it aside for a minute. He knows it’s silly, hiding adult-sized baby clothes behind two pieces of plywood glued together at a right angle to make his closet appear smaller, but it’s typical for him to tell his friends to just grab a shirt or hoodie if they get something on themselves or get cold, and he doesn’t feel like explaining a bunch on onesies in his closet.

He finds himself drawn to a yellow onesie, one he remembers wearing on one of Mark’s charity livestreams years ago. He remembers struggling to stay big wearing a onesie. Surrounding himself in memories of Mark probably isn’t good, but he does it anyway. He strips and digs a diaper out of the box on the floor. 

Putting on and changing diapers yourself isn’t fun or easy, so he usually has diaper rash for a while after one of his little sessions, because he just wears the same one for the whole time he’s little. He messily puts the diaper on and then puts the onesie on. 

He grabs a bottle out of the same box and heads to the kitchen, filling the bottle with milk. He grabs a pacifier and sets it on his bedside table, and then settles in for the night, turning on a kids’ movie on Netflix.

He’s content and comfortable, falling asleep within 15 minutes.

When Ethan wakes up, he’s cold, which is odd for how many blankets he has. His mind catches up and he throws the blankets aside to inspect. “Damn it,” he cusses, his big headspace taking over. The cheap diapers he’d bought because he didn’t want to invest more money in his weird shit to find good adult diapers, just going with a cheap deliverable option.

He regrets that now, because the diaper had filled up and leaked in the night, soaking his onesie and the bed. He starts stripping the bed, pilling his blankets up with a relieved sigh. The urine had only soaked into the thin blankets, which at least meant he was saved a trip to the laundromat for his comforter and other thick blankets. 

He’s glad he splurged on a mattress protector now. He strips the onesie off and adds it to the pile. He lets out a sad sigh. Waking up after being little was never fun. He grabs clothes from his closet and puts the plywood cover back in place.

He heads to the bathroom and undoes the tape on his diaper, cringing at the stickiness on his skin. He takes a long shower, trying and failing to wash the disgust he’s felt for himself these past two days away. He’s getting dressed when he hears a faint knock on the door. 

He checks his phone and sees multiple texts from Mark as well as a missed call. He decides the door was more important. He pulls his shirt over his head on his way to the door. He opens it to reveal Mark and Amy.

“Hey, Ethan. Did you get my texts?”

“Oh, sorry. I was in the shower. I just woke up. What are you doing here?”

Mark fakes exasperation and says, “What? We can’t visit a friend just because we want to?”

Ethan smiles slightly. “No, we had a video idea we wanted to bring up to you.”

This Ethan can listen to. Recording videos got his mind off of things for a while. “Sure, come in. Tell me about it.”

Amy follows Mark in and, despite his best efforts, his eyes drop to her still flat stomach. “Dumbass,” he tells himself under his breath. She was barely 2 months along, she wasn’t going to be showing yet.

He sits across from them and says, fake cheerful, “What’dya got in mind?”

“Well, we had an idea for an announcement video,” Amy starts.

Ethan can feel the already fake cheer leave him. “Oh, yeah,” he says, hoping he sounds sincere. 

“Well, we wanted to have a video where me and Amy just announce it, y’know? But! We thought: ‘What if we have a series of videos where our friends say some stuff. Words of encouragement for the baby, for us, or whatever, that we can show the baby in the future. What do ya think?”

“Sounds cool,”

“Well, we’re not gonna announce it until the second trimester, just in case, y’know, can never be too careful,” Amy says. “But we want your’s to be first!”

“Me? You don’t want Bob and Wade first? You’ve known them longer. Or Tyler?”

Their smiles drop a little, their eyes filling with an almost indiscernible sadness. “We want you first, Ethan.”

“Okay, I’ll start thinking of what I want to say. Tell me when you need it recorded.”

When Amy hit the second trimester, they told Ethan they were ready to start recording. He felt his heart drop to his stomach. He’d managed to make it through this past month by just pretending they weren’t having a baby, so being reminded knocked him out of his fantasy world.

He gets his script, if it could be called that, ready and sits at his desk. He fiddles with his recording software, trying to stall. He takes a deep breath and presses ‘record’. He forgoes his usual intro and goes right into his unconfident speech.

He talks about how happy he is for Mark and Amy and how lucky their baby is for having them as parents. He kinda just rattles things off until he reaches a reasonable time. If anyone questions why his eyes look shiny from tears, he’ll say that he is just extremely happy for them.

He messages Mark, ‘i finished the video. want me to edit it or you?’

He gets a reply right away. A simple, ‘i can do it’

He sends the raw footage over and hopes Mark doesn’t comment on his teary eyes. Mark would see right through his lie.

When the playlist is unprivated a few days later, Twitter blows up. It’s expected, of course, but still a bit shocking to see how many variations of ‘markiplier baby’ are trending. Ethan says the minimum amount needed before turning on ‘Do Not Disturb’. 

He goes radio silent for over a week. He spends the whole week in bed, only getting out of bed to take care of Spencer. He hears knocking on his door after the second day, letting him know he most likely missed some messages, but he ignores the knocking, which stops on the sixth day.

That hurts, but he ignores it. It’s not worth worrying them with his insignificant issues. A small part of his mind reminds him of how stupid his logic is, but he ignores that as well. Ethan is laying on his bed, unable to fall asleep but also unable to get himself to get up and do something. He’s unable to convince himself, but his bedroom door slamming open causes him to nearly jump out of his skin.

He turns over and his eyes meet with Mark’s. Mark looks pissed, but there’s also sadness hidden in there. “Ethan, get your ass out of bed.”

Ethan feels compelled to obey the command, so he does, though it feels as though his body is moving without his input. He follows Mark out to his living room and plops himself down on the couch. Mark sits across from him, and it reminds Ethan of their last meeting and all that does is make Ethan sadder. Mark’s demeanor softens as he takes in Ethan’s appearance.

His hair is messy from spending so long in bed and not bothering with fixing it, there are bags under his eyes and he’s wearing the same clothes he was wearing the last time Mark saw him.

“Ethan, you are not okay. That much is obvious. I want to help you, but I can’t help without knowing what it is that’s bothering you.”

Ethan can feel himself tearing up already, but he can’t bring himself to admit what is really bothering him, so he just wraps his arms around himself, squeezing tightly as a defense mechanism. He looks down at his knees, but he can still feel Mark’s eyes on him.

“Eef?” Mark asks, and that one syllable causes Ethan’s downfall. He starts sobbing heavily, tears streaming down his face. It only takes a second before Ethan is wrapped in the heat of Mark’s arms. Ethan brings his arms up and wraps them around Mark’s shoulder, burying his face in the older man’s shoulder, letting his tears soak into Mark’s shirt.

Mark lets him cry it out, despite the clear discomfort at the situation. Ethan sobs for what feels like an eternity, until he pulls away. He knows he must look like a deer caught in the headlights, but he doesn’t care. “Feel better?” Mark asks sincerely.

Ethan hesitantly nods. “Want to talk about it?”

“You’ll hate me,” Ethan mumbles.

Mark’s brows furrow and he states, completely confident in what he was saying, “Ethan, I could never hate you.”

They fall into an uneasy silence as they both weigh on the others’ words. Finally, Ethan speaks up in a tiny voice, “Do you know what ‘little space’ is?”

“I don’t think so,”

“Um...it’s, how the hell do I-- It’s basically a, uh, a ‘headspace’, I guess? I feel like a little kid when I’m in that headspace, like a little kid. I’m pretty much a toddler in an adult’s body…”

He knows his explanation probably makes no sense, but Mark at least seems to understand. “So, you feel like a baby sometimes and that causes you tooooo... lock yourself away for a week and a half?” Mark asks.

“It’s stupid, I know. But, I guess I’ve been a ‘little’ for years without a caregiver, using subpar supplies and probably causing more harm than good, and then...you announced that Amy was pregnant,” Ethan begins, keeping his voice low, as if that’ll make the conversation easier. When Ethan utters the word ‘pregnant’ he can see Mark’s face morph into realization. “I got… jealous! I’m a grown-ass adult and I was jealous of an unborn baby because it’s gonna be treated like a baby and that’s all I’ve wanted for years. That’s why I hid, I guess I was trying to get you to forget me, I think? It makes no sense, but you and Amy don’t deserve that, don’t deserve me having some weird complex and taking it out on your kid!”

He pauses to take a deep breath, cutting off Mark, who had opened his mouth to say something, “You know what the most pathetic part is? I swiped those adult diapers from the geriatric simulator video because they were higher quality than what I had at home. They’re cheap and leaky, but they’re still better than what I had.” 

His voice cracks on “pathetic” but Mark is kind enough not to comment. He does comment on something else though. “Why do you use low-quality things? Surely you can afford higher quality things.”

“I can,” Ethan says quietly, “But, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m telling myself not to waste money or energy on high-quality stuff because, at the end of the day, it’s just an adult man putting himself in diapers and falling asleep. It’s hard to fully regress when there are still adult feelings and concerns, y’know? How can I fully immerse myself in being a toddler, playing with toys contently, when I have to be on the lookout for Spencer, taking him outside and feeding him?”

Mark nods like he can understand Ethan’s surely nonsensical rambling. “Why haven’t you asked someone to be your...”caregiver,” is it? You’ve had a couple of longer-term girlfriends that you could’ve at least asked.”

That brings Ethan back to one of his biggest fears. “Well, I’ve had the little space feelings since I was 16, and I started YouTube around then, and then I started getting popular...and eventually it became a fear that if I told anyone, they’d reveal it to my subscribers and then my biggest secret would be out. I mean, when I’m in that headspace I’m pretty much a toddler, all it would take is an angry caregiver recording me while I’m like that and I’d never even know…”

“You’ve had these feelings for almost a decade and you still let yourself suffer? Ethan, you’re destroying yourself.” He trails off into silence, letting the words penetrate the silence.

Ethan doesn’t respond, unsure of what he could say. The silence stretches on for a moment, two, three, and then is broken by Mark. “I’m not really sure what being a caregiver would contain, but…” Ethan tries not to let himself get his hope up. “I might be able to talk to Amy, she wouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t be permanent, of course, once the baby comes it’ll have to end, but we could try to work something out. How often do you do it?”

“Really?” Ethan squeaks, disbelief painting every syllable out of his mouth. Mark smiles, and for a split second Ethan thinks the older man is going to laugh at him, but he doesn’t, instead, he pulls Ethan into a hug.

Mark hugs back, letting Ethan get all of his emotions out. Finally, Ethan exhales shakily and says, “I’m good only doing it once a month or every few months, though recently it’s been a weekly, sometimes daily thing.”

Mark winces, understanding that meant Ethan had been under immense stress. “I wish I could offer a permanent solution, but…”

“No, no, no. I get it. You’ll have an actual baby to take care of soon. They’re a higher priority. I can take care of myself, it’s just not as enjoyable, but a baby is helpless. Plus, I don’t want your kid to know me as ‘Mom and Dad’s friend who acts like a baby sometimes’”.

He knows Mark is taking note of his still self-deprecating wording for later but lets it go for now. “And Ethan? I hope you find someone you can trust wholeheartedly with this. You deserve to be happy and comfortable.”

They part on that, both emotionally exhausted. Ethan heads back to his room, determined to try and get actual sleep, feeling lighter than he has in months. Before he does that, he turns off Do Not Disturb and gets flooded with hundreds of notifications, mostly from Mark and Amy asking if he’s okay.

He sighs, he doesn’t think he could get rid of those two even if wanted to. At least, he hoped so. With that last thought, he falls onto the bed and is asleep within minutes, not even caring that he wakes up with his thumb in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna add a section of Mark taking care of little Ethan, but I felt it was better to end it there on a hopeful ending.
> 
> I tried to get their speech patterns down, but I probably put too many of my own in there. For example, I think I used "y'know" three times in three adjacent paragraphs.


End file.
